Actual, ideal, and expected relatedness with parents across and within cultures

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Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 36, 721–745 (2006)

Published online 30 May 2006 in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/ejsp.313

Actual, ideal, and expected relatedness with parents

across and within cultures

E. OLCAY IMAMOG˘LU

1

_{* AND}

ZAHIDE KARAKITAPOG˘LU-AYGU¨N

2

_**

1_{Middle East Technical University, Turkey} 2_{Bilkent University, Turkey}

Abstract

Differences in actual, ideal, and expected relatedness with mothers and fathers were explored across two cultural groups (i.e., university students from the U.S. and Turkey) in Study 1, and across two socioeconomic status (SES) groups (i.e., high school students from the upper and lower SES in Turkey) in Study 2. In both studies associations of perceived relatedness with individualistic and collectivistic value orientations as well as with self-construal types were also explored. Results indicated cultural groups to be quite similar in actual relatedness, but to differ in expected and ideal relatedness, with Turks reporting more relatedness. In Turkey, lower SES adolescents reported more relatedness in ideal and actual conditions than upper SES adolescents, while they did not differ in expected relatedness. Results involving self-types and value orientations pointed to both cross-cultural similarities and within-cultural diversity in relatedness. Theoretical implications of the differential impact of culture, SES, self-construals, and value orientations on actual, ideal, and expected relatedness are discussed. Copyright# 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Cultures tend to inﬂuence our self-deﬁnitions and relationships with others through cultural beliefs about what is desirable, referred to as the cultural syndromes (Triandis, 1995). Among these syndromes, individualism-collectivism (I-C) differentiation is the most studied one in predicting self-development and social behavior. The cross-cultural literature within the I-C framework indicates that there are cultural differences in how related or separated people construe themselves. Accord-ingly, people from the more collectivist cultures are characterized as having more related, overlapping and interdependent selves whereas those from the individualist cultures are characterized as being more separate and independent from others (Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Triandis, 1995).

On the other hand, attachment theorists have suggested relatedness to parents or primary caregivers to be a universal phenomenon (Ainsworth, 1972; Bowlby, 1988). However, other researchers have suggested that the biological predisposition for relatedness may be similar across individualist and collectivist cultures, but they tend to pass through the cultural lenses of individuation and

Received 19 April 2005 *Correspondence to: E. Olcay Imamog˘lu, Department of Psychology, Middle East Technical University, Ankara 06531, Turkey. E-mail: eolcay@metu.edu.tr

**Correspondence to: Zahide Karakitapog˘lu-Aygu¨n, Faculty of Business Administration, 06899 Bilkent Ankara, Turkey. E-mail: zkaygun@bilkent.edu.tr

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accommodation, respectively (Rothbaum, Pott, Azuma, Miyake, & Weisz, 2000). They further noted that while the collectivist cultures tend to be characterized by extreme indulgence of the caregiver and complete dependence of the child, the individualist cultures tend to be characterized by the tension between desires for both closeness and separation from the caregiver. Thus, collectivist cultures have been assumed to be generally characterized by greater relatedness than the individualist cultures. In this vein, particularly the most individualistic U.S. culture (as well as the individualistic tradition in mainstream psychology) has been criticized for neglecting or ‘underappreciating’ the importance of relatedness (Baumeister & Leary, 1994), and instead putting too much emphasis on ‘self-contained’ individualism (Sampson, 1988); for instance, Bellah, Madsen, Sullivan, and Tipton (1985) have criticized parent-child relations in the U.S. by noting that ‘For highly individuated Americans, there is something anomalous about the relation between parents and children, for the biologically normal dependence of children on adults is perceived as morally abnormal’ (p. 82).

On the other hand, some recent studies suggested that relationality should not be considered as equivalent to collectivism but that individualistic, collectivistic, and relational dimensions of the self tend to be orthogonal to each other (Kashima et al., 1995; Oyserman, Coon, & Kemmelmeier, 2002). For instance, Kashima et al. demonstrated that the relational dimension portrays, not cultural but, gender differences. Other researchers further differentiated between the value orientations of individualism, collectivism, and familism (i.e., referring to being oriented toward the welfare of one’s own, one’s larger community, and one’s immediate and extended family, respectively), and suggested that individuals’ orientations to their families need to be considered as distinct from their larger communities (Gaines et al., 1997).

As might be inferred from the above review, the role of relationality in a cultural framework does not seem to be very clear. On the one hand, relatedness is considered as a basic dimension of self-construals that differentiates between collectivistic and individualistic cultures (e.g., Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Triandis, 1995); on the other hand, it has been demonstrated to be a separate dimension that is not pertinent or relevant to I-C differentiation but to gender (Kashima et al., 1995). In a similar vein, the individualist U.S. culture, on the one hand, has been criticized for neglecting the importance of relationality (e.g., Baumeister & Leary, 1994; Sampson, 1988), on the other hand, relationality has been said to characterize the American type of interdependence, as distinct from the Eastern type of interdependence based on group memberships (Cross, Bacon, & Morris, 2000). Furthermore, from the arguments of the attachment theorists one would expect relatedness, especially to parents, to be a universal phenomenon, although the particular styles of attachment may be different (Van Ijzendoorn & Sagi, 1999). We aimed to shed light on some of these issues by exploring whether university students from Turkey and the U.S., categorized as collectivist and individualist societies, respectively (Hofstede, 1980), differ in the degree to which they construe themselves as related with their mothers and fathers.

There is further ambiguity in the literature regarding the exact role of culture on the type of relatedness perceived; for instance, when reference is made to perceiving the self as separate from or overlapping with others as a basic aspect of I-C or independence–interdependence (e.g., Markus & Kitayama, 1991), are we to understand differences in actually perceived relatedness; or differences in normative expectations; or differences in what is considered as the ideal degree of relatedness in those cultures? In the present studies we aimed to tackle this issue by obtaining separate measures of actual, ideal, and expected degrees of relatedness, in line with Higgins’ self-discrepancy theory (1987).

Self-discrepancy theory (Higgins, 1987) postulates three basic domains of the self: (a) the actual self refers to a person’s representation of the attributes that he/she believes the person actually possesses. In the present study, the actual related self (or actual relatedness) refers to the degree to which individuals construe themselves as being ‘separate from’ or ‘related to’ their parents. (b) The ideal self refers to a person’s representation of the attributes that the person would like to possess

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ideally (including hopes, wishes, or aspirations). In the present case, the ideal related self (or ideal relatedness) expresses the degree to which individuals would like to be related to their parents. Studying idealized degree of relatedness may shed light on the direction of future trends and hence its exploration may be especially important in rapidly changing societies such as Turkey. (c) The ought self refers to a person’s representation of the attributes that the person should or ought to possess (as an obligation, duty, or responsibility). In the present study, this domain was assumed to be parallel to the expected related self (or expected relatedness), referring to individuals’ perceptions of their parents’ expectations regarding relatedness. In other words, it refers to social expectations or norms about the degree of inclusion of others in the self-concept in a culture and may be more likely to reﬂect normative differences across contexts.

Exploring relatedness in these three domains enabled us to address ‘the question of where the seat of culture really is’.1That is, if the actual lived experiences of individuals regarding relatedness were different across cultures, as is often assumed, then, we might expect differences in actual related selves. If cultures mainly function by inﬂuencing goals, wishes, aspirations, or values regarding relatedness, then we might expect differences in ideal related selves. However, cultural systems not only serve descriptive functions but also make normative claims that may be developed into obligations (D’Andrade, 1997). Hence, if cultures basically operate by having their impact on social norms, responsibilities, duties, or obligations regarding relationality, then, we might expect differ-ences in expected relatedness.

Another issue we aimed to tackle in the present study concerns within-culture variability in relatedness with parents. Cultures often are assumed to be more homogeneous than they actually are; for example, as noted above, people from a relatively collectivistic culture are assumed to be more related than those from an individualistic one. However, individuals within a particular culture often tend to vary in the degree to which they internalize the culture’s outlook. As Geertz (1973a, 1973b) noted, social relations depend on the interaction of cultural, social structural and personality systems. Thus, by considering within-cultural variation, we aimed to go beyond the tacit understanding which regards culture as a property of some social group and tried to further explore how relatedness with parents varies depending on socioeconomic-status (SES), self-construal types, and value orientations of individuals. In a similar vein, several investigators have referred to the need to capture the within-culture variability in self-construals (Bandura, 2001; Imamog˘lu, 2003; Sinha & Tripathi, 1994). For example, on the basis of the Balanced Integration and Differentiation (BID) model, Imamog˘lu (1998, 2003) identiﬁed four self-construal types among Turkish university students. The present study also has utilized the four self-types suggested by the BID model, as explained later in the paper. In another related study, Imamog˘lu and Karakitapog˘lu-Aygu¨n (2004) found that both Turkish and American university students with similar BID-based self-types showed similar value orientation patterns, pointing to both cross-cultural similarities and within-culture variation. In fact, differences in self-construal types seemed to have more impact on value orientations than cultural differences. Furthermore, SES-related differences in self-construals and values between Turkish adolescents appeared to be more pronounced than cross-cultural differences between Turkish and American university students. Those earlier ﬁndings point to the importance of exploring the within-culture variability in self-construals and values.

Thus, our aim in the present studies was to increase understanding of the role and significance of relatedness as a dimension of both cross and within-cultural differences. Specifically, first, we aimed to tackle the issue of how culture achieves its effect by studying actual, ideal, and expected degrees of relatedness in the Turkish and U.S. contexts. Secondly, we aimed to tackle the issue of within-culture variation in relatedness by exploring (a) the impact of general self-types; i.e., whether individuals with

1

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different self-construal types, based on the BID model, tend to perceive their actual, ideal, and expected relatedness with parents differently within each culture, and show similar patterns of relatedness across cultures; (b) the impact of self-directed and other-directed value orientations implying individualistic and collectivistic outlooks; i.e., whether variations in individuals’ I-C-related value orientations predict their perceptions of actual, ideal, and expected relatedness within each culture, and in a similar fashion across cultures; and (c) the impact of SES differences (upper, lower) in Turkey; i.e., whether individuals from different SES groups vary in their perceptions of actual, ideal, and expected degrees of relatedness. In the second study involving SES differences in Turkey, we also considered within-SES variation in relatedness involving the BID-related self-types and I-C-related value orientations.

Our expectations are considered further below in relation both to the first study involving Turkish and American university students as well as the second study involving cross-status differences among Turkish adolescents. However, first, the BID model, which, as noted above, has been used to specify different self-types, is briefly described below.

DIFFERENT SELF-TYPES PROPOSED BY THE BID MODEL

The BID model (Imamog˘lu, 1995, 2003) assumes human beings to have basic psychological needs for both intrapersonal differentiation (i.e., a self-developmental tendency to actualize one’s unique potentials and be effective) and for interpersonal integration (i.e., an interrelational tendency to be connected to others). The low and high ends of the latter orientation are labeled as separatedness and relatedness, respectively. The high end of the former orientation is referred to as individuation (i.e., becoming differentiated as a unique person with intrinsic referents, such as personal capabilities, inclinations, free will or willful consent), while the low end is referred to as normative patterning (i.e., becoming patterned in accordance with extrinsic referents, such as normative expectations and social control).

The combinations of these distinct and complementary intrapersonal differentiation and inter-personal integration orientations are suggested to give rise to four types of self-construals: i.e., separated-individuation, related-patterning (representing the most differentiated and the integrated types, respectively), separated-patterning and related individuation (representing the most unba-lanced and baunba-lanced types, respectively). The model assumes that these different self-types tend to be similar across cultures in terms of their associations with psychological variables. Investigators who have used the BID scale, which is described later in the paper, have provided support for the model among Turkish, American, and Canadian samples (Gezici & Gu¨venc¸, 2003; Gu¨ler, 2004; Imamog˘lu, 1998, 2002, 2003; Imamog˘lu & Karakitapog˘lu-Aygu¨n, 2004; Kurt, 2002). Expectations concerning the BID-related self-types are considered below.

STUDY 1: PERCEIVED RELATEDNESS WITH PARENTS IN TURKEY AND THE U.S.

Cultural Differences

As noted above, the related literature indicates Turkey and the U.S. to differ on the I-C classiﬁcation, the latter representing the most individualist culture, while Turkey representing a collectivist culture that is close to the midpoint on the I-C classiﬁcation (Hofstede, 1980). Accordingly, the Turkish sociocultural context has been traditionally characterized by an emphasis on interpersonal relationships and close ties with family and relatives encouraging higher levels of relatedness than, for

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instance, the Swedes (Imamog˘lu & Imamog˘lu, 1992; Imamog˘lu, Ku¨ller, Imamog˘lu, & Ku¨ller, 1993). Although among the upper segments of the society there appears to be a trend to express more individuation in self-construals and value orientations, still relatedness seems to be retained (Imamog˘lu, 1987, 2003; Imamog˘lu & Karakitapog˘lu-Aygu¨n, 2004; Karakitapog˘lu-Aygu¨n & Imamo-g˘lu, 2002). More importantly, when asked about their desired levels of relatedness, Turkish people consistently report favoring even more relatedness with family members and neighbors (Imamog˘lu, 1987, 2002; Imamog˘lu & Imamog˘lu, 1996).

On the other hand, in the related I-C literature, people from the individualistic American culture are generally characterized as being less related than those from the more collectivist Asian cultures (Triandis, Bontempo, Villareal, Asai, & Lucca, 1988; Uleman, Rhee, Bardoliwalla, Semin, & Toyama, 2000). For example, in terms of closeness with family and relatives, Turks were found to be closest, Euro-Americans more distant and Asian-Americans in between (Uleman et al., 2000).

Thus, on the basis of the I-C framework and the above-noted studies, Turkish respondents may be expected to report more relatedness with their parents than the Americans. However, as considered before, there seems to be some conflicting evidence regarding the role of relationality; for instance, as noted previously, Kashima et al. (1995) reported that relationality was not relevant to I-C differentia-tion but was orthogonal to it. On the other hand, regarding reladifferentia-tionality in the U.S., other investigators (e.g., Cross et al., 2000; Oyserman et al., 2002) concluded that Americans tend to be relational in terms of being close to their families and groups, though not in terms of feeling obligated or duty-bound. For example, Cross et al. (2000) noted that people who have high levels of relational interdependent selves, characteristic of the American type of interdependent self, were more likely to rate their important relationships as close, to show more commitment to their relationships and to consider the needs of others in their decisions. Thus, those studies tend to provide evidence that conflicts with the expectations of the traditional I-C outlook. Furthermore, a recent study involving 16 cultures (including Turkey and U.S.A.) indicated that all countries showed close emotional bonds with mothers, fathers, and siblings, with only minor differences across cultural groups (Georgas et al., 2001). Other investigators have also concluded that patterns of emotional closeness do not differ systematically across cultures (Fijneman, Willemsen, & Poortinga, 1996; Van den Heuvel & Poortinga, 1999). Similarly, Imamog˘lu and Karakitapog˘lu-Aygu¨n (2004) demonstrated that Turkish and American university students tend to be quite similar in terms of their interrelational orientations. Thus, the above-noted studies seem to provide somewhat conflicting messages regarding relation-ality differences to be expected between Turkey and the U.S. As will be remembered, we aimed to get a clearer picture of cultural differences by obtaining specific measures of actual, ideal, and expected degrees of relatedness. Accordingly, on the basis of the recent evidence pointing to cross-cultural similarities in relationality (e.g., Georgas et al., 2001), we expected Turkish and American respondents to be quite similar in actual relatedness with parents. However, in view of their respective differences in collectivist and individualist traditions, which would be expected to provide different cultural syndromes (Triandis, 1995), we expected Turks to report more relatedness in terms of ideals and expectations than the Americans. In these predictions, our idea was that culture’s impact on actual degree of relatedness with parents might be much less than that on social norms, rules, obligations, or the social ‘expectations’ as well as values, goals, aspirations or ‘ideals’.

Relatedness Differences Involving Self-Types and Value Orientations

In both societies, we expected to ﬁnd similar patterns of variability in relatedness depending on self-types and value orientations of respondents. Speciﬁcally, regardless of culture, we generally expected the collectivistic value orientation to be positively associated with perceived relatedness (Triandis,

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1995), but the individualistic orientation to be either distinct (Kashima et al., 1995), or somewhat negatively associated, as suggested by the I-C framework. Again, regardless of culture, we expected respondents with related (i.e., both the related-individuated and related-patterned types) rather than separated self-construals to perceive themselves as more related with their parents. Since the BID-related self-types are assumed to reflect actual differences, we expected the impact of self-types to be mostly on actual relatedness. On the other hand, because values are considered as desirable guidelines (Rokeach, 1973; Schwartz, 1992), their impact might be mostly on ideal relatedness. That is, unlike the cross-cultural differences, which were expected to be significant for ideal and expected relationality, we expected respondents with different self-types or value orientations to show more diversity in actual and ideal relatedness compared to expected relatedness; i.e., since they live in the same culture, the expectations or social norms regarding relationality might presumably be more or less similar, regardless of self-types or value orientations. No culture-specific predictions were made regarding the associations between relatedness judgments and endorsement of I-C values apart from the general expectations noted above.

Gender Differences

Studies investigating self-conceptions indicated that gender-related expectations and social roles might play an important role in self-deﬁnitions. According to research conducted in the U.S. (Cross & Madson, 1997; Gabriel & Gardner, 1999; Gilligan, 1982; Lykes, 1985; Mellor, 1989; Olver, Aries, & Batgos, 1989), generally, men are more likely to have less related and independent selves that emphasize personal agency, instrumentality, uniqueness and differentiation. Females, on the other hand, are more likely to have interdependent and relational self-construals emphasizing relatedness and embeddedness with others, and especially with their mothers (Jordan, 1997); for example, Gabriel and Gardner (1999) found that women describe themselves as more relational, have higher scores on relational self-construal, show more emotional experiences in association with relationships and pay more attention to information about relationships; men, on the other hand, were found to show a more separate and differentiated self than women, and more clear boundaries with others (Olver et al., 1989). In a similar vein, in a series of studies investigating the self-descriptions of Turkish adolescents by using Twenty Statements Test, Sunar (1999) found that women attributed more importance to interpersonal characteristics and reported greater satisfaction with regard to these interpersonal attributes. In more recent studies, female university students were found to be both more related, and more individuated than males (Imamog˘lu, 2002, 2003; Imamog˘lu & Karakitapog˘lu-Aygu¨n, 2004; Kurt, 2002). Thus, there is evidence that gendered socialization seems to encourage women toward a relational construal of self more than men. In the light of these ﬁndings, female respondents were expected to report more relatedness with their parents, and especially with their mothers, as compared to male ones in both cultural groups. Furthermore, because femininity generally is considered to imply relatedness, as noted above, female respondents might be expected to idealize relationality, especially with mothers, more than male respondents.

Method Participants

Eight-hundred-sixty-three Turkish and American university students participated in the study, as explained below.

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American (U.S.A.) Sample A sample of 441 University of Michigan undergraduates (186 male, 255 female) taking introductory psychology courses participated in the study to fulﬁll a course requirement. The mean age of the sample was 18.88 (SD¼ 0.97), ranging from 18 to 24. The sample was predominantly Euro-American, with 81% identifying as Euro-American, 9.3% as Asian-American, 5.7% as African-Asian-American, and 3.4% other.2

Turkish Sample The Turkish sample consisted of 422 undergraduate students (185 male, 237 female; mean age 19.75, SD¼ 1.84, range 17–25) from different departments of two universities in Ankara. In terms of parental education, most of the respondents were from middle and upper–middle SES families.3

The Turkish and the U.S. samples were generally comparable in terms of gender and age, but not in terms of parental education. The education level of the U.S. parents was somewhat higher than that of the Turkish sample (mean level of total years of education¼ 16.88, SD ¼ 2.52 for the U.S. parents; and M¼ 10.84, SD ¼ 3.97 for Turkish parents). Therefore, as noted later, parental education was statistically controlled while investigating the cross-cultural differences.

Measures and Procedure

Questionnaires were group-administered to students together with other scales not considered in the present paper. The Turkish and English versions of the scales, checked through back translations, were used as described below. Two native speakers of English and Turkish also checked the scales for wording, accuracy, and clarity of items in both languages.

All respondents ﬁlled out the questionnaires in class. One-point bonus was given to the students for their participation, which was on a voluntary basis. The participants were assured that their responses would be anonymous and conﬁdential.

Perceived Relatedness Scale A measure of perceived relatedness was developed by the authors for the present research purposes, based on a modiﬁcation of Interpersonal Closeness Scale (Aron, Aron, & Smollan, 1992; Aron, Aron, Tudor, & Nelson 1991). Interpersonal Closeness Scale. Following Aron et al., relatedness with parents was deﬁned as inclusion of the mother or the father in the self-concept. Relatedness was conceptualized in terms of perceived emotional closeness, similarity of thoughts, similarity of personality characteristics and relatedness (versus distinctness) of identity. High scores on the scale denote being more related.

The scale was administered in three different formats: actual, ideal and expected degrees of relatedness with parents. In the actual condition, degree of current emotional closeness and similarity with parents, and degree of perceived independence of identity from parents were asked. Examples are, ‘Which of the drawings best describes your affective relationship with your mother/father?’, ‘To what extent are your father’s/mother’s and your own thoughts similar in general?’, ‘To what extent do you perceive yourself as an independent and distinct individual from your mother/father?’ In the ideal condition, emotional closeness and similarity (in terms of thoughts and personality characteristics) that adolescents would like to have with their parents and the kind of individual they would like to be in terms of degree of independence were asked. Examples are; ‘How would you wish your relationship

2

The results of the analyses comparing Euro-American and other minority groups on the dependent variables indicated that groups, in general, did not differ from each other.

3

No differences were observed between student groups from the two universities except that mean parental education of students from the Middle East Technical University (M¼ 11.73) was somewhat higher that of those from Hacettepe University (M ¼ 9.61, p < 0.001).

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with your mother/father to be?’, ‘To what extent would you wish your mother’s/father’s and your own thoughts to be similar?’, ‘To what extent do you wish to be an independent and distinct individual from your mother/father?’. With regard to expected relatedness with mothers and fathers, adolescents’ opinions about their parents’ expectations regarding the degree of relatedness in each domain were asked. Example questions are; ‘In your opinion, how does your mother/father expect your relationship to be?’, ‘In your opinion, to what extent does your mother/father expect your thoughts to be similar to hers/his?’, ‘In your opinion to what extent does your mother/father expect you to be an independent and distinct individual from her/him?’. All the items were measured via the Venn-like diagrams (two circles—labeled ‘me’ and ‘mom’ or ‘dad’—with increasing degrees of overlap) whose response options changed between 1 (no-overlap between circles) and 9 (total overlap between circles).

The reliability and validity of the scale were tested in a pilot study involving 125 Turkish university students. The respective Cronbach’s alpha values in relation to mothers and fathers were 0.77 and 0.87 for actual, 0.75 and 0.83 for ideal, 0.80 and 0.82 for expected conditions. Moreover, validity checks with the question ‘To what extent does your mother/father constitute an important part of your sense of who you are?’ yielded moderate to high correlations (varying between 0.40 and 0.74) for different types of relatedness indicating good construct validity. (As can be seen in Table 2, in the present study, alpha values were also satisfactory for both cultural groups, as well as the SES groups of the second study).

Self-Directed or Individualistic and Other-Directed or Collectivistic Value Orientations In line with the related literature (e.g., Markus & Kitayama, 1991), 14 values were selected from Schwartz Value Survey (1992) half of which represented self-directedness and the rest, other-directedness. Self-directed values (i.e., freedom, creativity, independent, curious, capable, choosing own goals, and self-respect) represented an individualistic orientation of attending to the needs and goals of the self rather than the others and were mainly concerned with Schwartz et al.’s (2001) self-direction domain. On the other hand, other-directed values (i.e., honoring of parents and elders, obedient, helpful, devout, reciprocation of favors, respect for tradition, and family security) represented a collectivistic orientation of attending to the needs and wishes of others and were concerned with the conformity, benevolence, and traditionalism domains according to Schwartz et al. (2001).

Respondents rated the importance of each value as a guiding principle in their lives on a 5-point scale (1 ‘not important at all’ and 5 ‘very important’). Separate factor analyses indicated the self-directed/individualistic and other-directed/collectivistic values to be loaded under two separate factors for each cultural group (and SES group in the second study), except that in the analysis of the U.S. (and lower SES) data the weakest item loaded under both factors. For the Turkish university student sample, Cronbach’s alpha values were 0.73 and 0.75, and for the American sample 0.75 and 0.71 for individualistic and collectivistic value orientations, respectively.

Balanced Integration-Differentiation (BID) Scale This self-construal scale (Imamog˘lu, 1998, 2003) consists of two subscales. The Self-Developmental Orientation subscale, consisting of 13 items, is concerned with intrapersonal differentiation toward individuation (i.e., relying on one’s inner qualities and interests as a developmental frame of reference rather than accommodating oneself to a normative frame of reference). Sample items are: ‘It is important for me that I develop my potential and characteristics and be a unique person’ and the reverse-scored item of, ‘I feel it is more important for everyone to behave in accordance with societal expectations rather than striving to develop his/her uniqueness.’ The 16-item Interrelational Orientation measures tendencies and preferences for relatedness and connectedness with family and others. Sample items are: ‘I emotionally feel very close to my family’ and the reverse-scored item of, ‘I feel emotionally alienated from my close environment.’ Participants were asked to indicate their degree of agreement with the items using

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5-point scales ranging from 1 (not at all) to 5 (very). Cronbach’s alpha values were reported to vary between 0.74 and 0.82 for the former and between 0.80 and 0.91 for the latter subscales in different studies (Gezici & Gu¨venc¸, 2003; Gu¨ler, 2004; Imamog˘lu, 1998, 2003; Kurt, 2002). In the present study, alpha values were 0.77 and 0.86 for the Turkish sample, and 0.71 and 0.86 for the American sample for self-developmental and interrelational orientations, respectively. Test-retest reliabilities of the subscales, over a period of three weeks, were found to be 0.85 and 0.84, respectively (Gu¨ler, 2004). The scale was found to have good convergent and discriminant validity (Imamog˘lu, 2002). Mean scores on these subscales are used to measure individuation and relatedness, respectively. As noted above, combinations of high and low scores on these two subscales (using medians as cutting points) yield four self-construal types; i.e., separated-individuated, related-patterned types representing the most differentiated and most integrated types, respectively; and separated-patterned and related-individuated types representing the most unbalanced and balanced types, respectively (for further explanation see Imamog˘lu, 1998, 2003).

Results

First, in order to explore cross-cultural and gender differences in types of relatedness, a 2 (culture: Turkey, U.S.A.) 2 (gender: male, female) 2 (parent: mother, father) 3 (type of relatedness: actual, ideal, expected) analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) with repeated measures on the last two variables was conducted. Secondly, cross and within-culture differences involving self-types and value orientations were explored by separate multivariate analyses of covariance (MANCOVAs), using actual, ideal, and expected types of relatedness as dependent variables, as explained below. In all cross-cultural analyses, parental education was included as a covariate because there were some weak correlations between parental education and relatedness measures in our samples. Since sample sizes were large for both cultural groups, the more conservative 0.01 level of signiﬁcance was accepted. In follow-up analyses, Tukey technique was used for within-subject effects and univariate analysis of covariance was used for between-subject effects. Moreover, in order to explore whether individualistic and collectivistic value orientations predict relatedness, separate regression analyses were conducted.

Cross-Cultural Differences in Relatedness

According to the ANCOVA analysis noted above, main effects involving culture, parent, and type of relatedness were signiﬁcant, as shown in Table 1. Accordingly, Turkish respondents (M¼ 6.08) endorsed more relatedness with their parents than the U.S. respondents (M¼ 5.55); participants reported greater relatedness with their mothers (M¼ 6.03) as compared to fathers (M ¼ 5.60); and as for the type of relatedness, expected relatedness (M¼ 6.57) had the highest scores followed by ideal (M¼ 5.74) and then actual (M ¼ 5.14) relatedness (p < 0.001).

However, these main effects were qualified by significant interactions as can be seen in Table 1. First, culture by type of relatedness was significant. As shown in Table 2, the Turkish and American students did not differ significantly in the actual relatedness, but they did so in the ideal and expected relatedness ( p< 0.001 in both analyses).

Moreover, as shown in Table 1, gender of the respondent by type of relatedness interaction was also found to be signiﬁcant. Post-hoc analyses showed that women displayed signiﬁcantly higher levels of

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Table 1. Signiﬁcant ANCOVA and MANCOVA results involving cross-cultural data

Source MSE df F 2

Differences in relatedness across cultural groupsa

Culture 5.98 1, 825 31.27*** 0.04

Parent 2.04 1, 825 34.97*** 0.04

Relatedness Type 0.93 2, 1650 108.28*** 0.12

Culture Relatedness Type 0.93 2, 1650 27.74*** 0.03

Gender Relatedness Type 0.93 2, 1650 7.03*** 0.01

Gender Parent 2.04 1, 1825 26.88*** 0.03

Gender Parent Relatedness Type 0.56 2, 1650 5.59** 0.01

Differences in relatedness of participants with different self-typesb

Self-Type 9, 1988 17.19*** 0.06 Actual Relatedness 1.26 3, 819 49.17*** 0.15 Ideal Relatedness 1.19 3, 819 35.08*** 0.11 Expected Relatedness 1.07 3, 819 7.13*** 0.03 Culture Self-Type 9, 1988 3.39*** 0.01 Actual Relatedness 1.26 3, 819 1.35 0.01 Ideal Relatedness 1.19 3, 819 1.67 0.01 Expected Relatedness 1.07 3, 819 2.25 0.01

Differences in relatedness of respondents with different value orientationsc

Collectivist Orientation 3, 810 32.19*** 0.11

Actual Relatedness 1.37 1, 812 73.53*** 0.08

Ideal Relatedness 1.21 1, 812 92.97*** 0.10

Expected Relatedness 1.05 1, 812 40.98*** 0.05

a_{A 2 (Culture)}_{2 (Gender) 2 (Parent) 3 (Relatedness type) ANCOVA (parental education as covariate) with repeated}

measures on the two last variables is involved.

b_{A 2 (Culture)}_{4 (Self type) MANCOVA using relatedness types as dependent variables is involved. For culture effects}

involving relatedness types, see Table 2.

c_{A 2 (Culture)}_{2 (Collectivist Value Orientation) 2 (Individualist Value Orientation) MANCOVA using relatedness types as}

dependent variables is involved. For culture effects involving relatedness types, see Table 2. *p< 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001.

Table 2. Means, standard deviations, alpha and F values for relatedness with parents involving cultural and SES

data

Culturea Turkey U.S.A.

M SD M SD Fb MSE 2

Actual Relatedness 0.84 5.24 1.35 0.76 5.05 1.09 1.98 1.49 0.00

Ideal Relatedness 0.81 6.00 1.22 0.83 5.48 1.11 2.92*** 1.35 0.03

Expected Relatedness 0.77 7.01 1.03 0.77 6.13 1.07 76.55*** 1.10 0.09

SES Upper SES Lower SES

M SD M SD Fc MSE 2

Actual Relatedness 0.85 5.42 1.60 0.82 6.01 1.62 12.18*** 2.59 0.03

Ideal Relatedness 0.87 6.21 1.61 0.80 7.17 1.40 36.31*** 2.27 0.10

Expected Relatedness 0.78 7.25 1.16 0.79 7.38 1.36 0.42 1.61 0.00

a

Means are corrected for parental education.

b_{Degrees of freedom}_{¼ 1 and 828–831.} c

Degrees of freedom¼ 1 and 335–343. *p< 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001.

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relatedness with their parents than men did only in the ideal condition (see Table 3). The differences between men and women in actual and expected relatedness with parents were not signiﬁcant.

Furthermore, gender of the respondent by parent interaction was found to be signiﬁcant (Table 1). There were no differences between males and females on perceived relatedness with fathers, but on relatedness with mothers to which females assigned higher scores than males (see Table 3).

Finally, type of relatedness by parent by gender of the respondent interaction was signiﬁcant (Table 1). As can be seen in Table 3, in terms of relatedness with mothers, women reported higher scores than men in all three types of relatedness. On the other hand, the only signiﬁcant difference between men and women in relatedness with fathers was found on the actual type, which was assigned higher scores by men than women ( p< 0.01).

In the sections below, only the effects involving self-types or value orientations are considered. Since culture-related differences in types of relatedness have already been reported, they are not repeated.

Table 3. Gender differences in relatedness with parents involving cultural and SES data

Culturea Women Men

M SD M SD Fb _MSE 2

Relatedness With Parents 5.87 1.02 5.74 1.08 3.09 1.05 0.00

Actual Relatedness 5.13 1.22 5.15 1.23 0.01 1.49 0.00

Ideal Relatedness 5.85 1.15 5.62 1.26 8.37** 1.37 0.01

Expected Relatedness 6.63 1.14 6.51 1.22 3.35 1.20 0.00

Relatedness With Mothers 6.18 1.08 5.85 1.14 20.32*** 1.14 0.02

Actual Relatedness 5.53 1.44 5.23 1.33 10.87*** 1.94 0.01

Ideal Relatedness 6.05 1.28 5.64 1.36 21.79*** 1.63 0.03

Expected Relatedness 7.01 1.17 6.74 1.32 10.90*** 1.30 0.01

Relatedness With Fathers 5.54 1.26 5.64 1.31 1.09 1.63 0.00

Actual Relatedness 4.74 1.61 5.08 1.64 8.37** 2.61 0.01

Ideal Relatedness 5.66 1.35 5.60 1.49 0.52 1.98 0.00

SES Women Men

M SD M SD Fc MSE 2

Relatedness With Parents 6.67 1.33 6.48 1.26 1.71 1.69 0.00

Relatedness With Mothers 6.87 1.28 6.51 1.31 7.14** 1.68 0.02

Ideal Relatedness 7.05 1.64 6.45 1.65 11.17*** 2.71 0.03

Expected Relatedness 7.64 1.25 7.36 1.28 4.43* 1.60 0.01

Relatedness With Fathers 6.50 1.66 6.42 1.51 0.08 2.53 0.00

a

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Differences in Relatedness of Respondents with Different Self-Types across and within Cultures According to the 2 (culture: Turkey, U.S.A.) 4 (self type: separated-patterned, separated-individ-uated, related-patterned, related-individuated) MANCOVA analysis using actual, ideal, and expected relatedness as dependent variables, self-type main effect was found to be significant (see Table 1). As shown in Table 4, all the univariate effects were significant. Accordingly, students with related self-construals (i.e., related-patterned and related-individuated) reported more relatedness with their parents as compared to those with separated self-construals (i.e., patterned and separated-individuated) in all types of relatedness except for expected relatedness in which only the difference between the separated-individuated and related-patterned groups reached significance. As can be seen in Table 4, the impact of self-types was greatest on actual relatedness and least on expected relatedness with ideal relatedness being in between.

Although the multivariate culture by self-type interaction was found to be signiﬁcant, none of the univariate effects reached signiﬁcance (Table 1). As can be seen in Figure 1, the overall patterns of relatedness were strikingly similar in both cultures except for a trend for the separated-individuated Americans to be relatively less related than their Turkish counterparts.

Differences in Relatedness of Respondents with Different Value Orientations across and within Cultures

To explore whether individualistic and collectivistic value orientations predicted relatedness with parents, ﬁrst, regression analyses were computed. Actual, ideal and expected relatedness measures (combined for mothers and fathers) were predicted by individualistic and collectivistic values after controlling for parental education. As shown in Table 5, collectivistic values positively predicted all types of relatedness with parents in both cultural groups. On the other hand, there was a trend for the individualistic values to negatively predict actual and expected relatedness with parents only in the U.S. context (as well as a weak trend for ideal relatedness to do so), whereas they appeared to be independent of relatedness in the Turkish context.

Table 4. Relatedness with parents according to self-types involving the cultural and SES groups

Culturea Separated- Separated- Related-

Related-Patterned Individuated Patterned Individuated

M SD M SD M SD M SD Fb 2 Actual Relatedness 4.71a 1.15 4.55a 1.16 5.67b 1.09 5.50b 1.12 49.17*** 0.15 Ideal Relatedness 5.46a 1.21 5.23a 1.21 6.23b 1.13 5.97b 1.08 35.08*** 0.11 Expected Relatedness 6.47ab 1.21 6.32a 1.27 6.75b 1.08 6.69ab 1.11 7.13*** 0.03 SES M SD M SD M SD M SD Fc 2 Actual Relatedness 4.65a 1.75 4.77a 1.47 6.43b 1.25 6.34b 1.30 34.10*** 0.24 Ideal Relatedness 6.02a 1.71 6.23a 1.70 7.18b 1.23 7.13b 1.26 14.02*** 0.12 Expected Relatedness 6.86a 1.47 7.05ab 1.37 7.45bc 1.17 7.71c 1.00 7.48*** 0.07 a

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To further explore whether the impact of individualistic-collectivistic value orientations on relatedness with parents differed across cultures, high and low individualist and collectivist groups were created by using medians of value orientations as cutting points; then, a 2 (culture: Turkey, U.S.A.) 2 (individualist value orientation: low, high) 2 (collectivist value orientation: low, high) MANCOVA was conducted using actual, ideal and expected relatedness as dependent variables. As shown in Table 1, the multivariate and univariate effects of collectivist value orientation were signi-ﬁcant. As would be expected from the regression results shown in Table 5, those effects indicated that

3 4 5 6 7 8 Separated-Patterned Separated- Individuated Related-Patterned Related-Individuated Self-Construal Types

Adjusted Mean Relatedness Ratings

Turkey U.S.A.

Figure 1. Adjusted (for parental education) mean relatedness scores of Turkish and American respondents with

different self-types according to the BID model

Table 5. Predicting relatedness from individualistic and collectivistic values across culturalaand SES groupsb

Study 1 Culture

Turkey U.S.A.

Individualistic Collectivistic Individualistic Collectivistic

Actual Relatedness 0.00 0.38*** 0.14** 0.33***

Ideal Relatedness 0.01 0.43*** 0.11* 0.38***

Expected Relatedness 0.07 0.21*** 0.14** 0.34***

Study 2 SES (Turkey)

Upper Lower

Individualistic Collectivistic Individualistic Collectivistic

Actual Relatedness 0.12 0.44*** 0.02 0.37***

Ideal Relatedness 0.14 0.56*** 0.09 0.43***

Expected Relatedness 0.05 0.23** 0.05 0.40***

a_{Parental education was controlled (entered in the ﬁrst step).} b

Standardized Beta Coefﬁcients are reported. *p< 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001.

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the more collectivistic respondents reported more relatedness than those less so. As shown in Table 1, the impact of collectivist value orientation seemed to be highest on ideal relatedness; then on actual relatedness; and lowest on expected relatedness. Furthermore, the collectivist orientation effect appeared to be independent of both culture and the individualist orientation.

Discussion

As expected, Turkish respondents generally reported more relatedness with their parents than the Americans. However, consistent differences were obtained in terms of actual, ideal, and expected types of relatedness across and within cultures. First, groups were similar in that all respondents perceived more relatedness in expected than in actual relatedness while their ideal selves were in between. Regarding differences across cultures, Turks differed from the Americans mostly in terms of expected relatedness, and to a lesser degree in terms of ideal relatedness; however, the groups did not differ from each other in terms of their reports of actual relatedness with parents. As considered later in the General Discussion, these ﬁndings have important implications for our understanding of cross-cultural differences.

As expected, in both cultures respondents with related rather than separated self-types, regardless of their degree of individuation, perceived themselves as more related with their parents in actual, ideal, and, to some degree, expected terms. Again as would be expected, the impact of self-construal type was highest on actual and lowest on expected relatedness. Thus, it appears that respondents with related self-construals not only report more actual relatedness but also tend to idealize it and, to some degree, tend to perceive their parents as expecting more relatedness compared to those with separated self-construals. Furthermore, those effects did not vary either as a function of the individuational orientations or the cultural contexts of respondents, except for a multivariate trend for the separated-individuated Americans to report relatively less relatedness than their Turkish counterparts; however, according to the univariate results, Turks and Americans with different self-construal types showed remarkably similar patterns of actual, ideal, and expected relatedness with parents, pointing to both cross-cultural similarities and within-culture variations.

Another consistent trend was implied by the associations between individualistic and collectivistic value orientations and relatedness measures. Within each society those students who tended to be more collectivistic (in terms of endorsing other-directed values) appeared to report more relatedness than those less so. However, in general, endorsing self-directed individualistic values appeared to be independent of relationality, except for a weak trend for individualistic orientation to predict being somewhat less related in the U.S.

Gender-Related Differences

As for gender-related ﬁndings, in both cultures, respondents appeared to be more related with their mothers than fathers. Furthermore, in terms of relatedness with mothers, women seem to perceive more actual, ideal, and expected relatedness than men do, whereas in terms of relatedness with fathers, male and female respondents do not seem to differ except that men tend to perceive more actual relatedness than women do. These ﬁndings are in line with the previously reported studies indicating women to be more interrelated in their relationships with parents and others (Chodorow, 1978; Frank, Avery & Laman, 1988; Gilligan, 1982; Lykes, 1985; Youniss & Ketterlinus, 1987). Similarly, women’s higher endorsement of being related with their mothers seems to be consistent with other research reports indicating their close, intimate relationships and open communication with mothers relative to

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fathers (Frank, Avery, & Laman, 1988; Fuligni, 1994; Hauser et al., 1987; Hunter & Youniss, 1982; Youniss & Ketterlinus, 1987). In fact, the mother-daughter bond has been considered to be prototypic of the related self (Jordan, 1997).

STUDY 2: PERCEIVED RELATEDNESS WITH PARENTS AT THE UPPER AND LOWER SES IN TURKEY

As noted in the general introduction, in this second study we aimed to explore SES-related differences in Turkey regarding the considered types of relatedness. Triandis (1989; 1990; 1997) asserts that in all societies and cultures, the upper social classes are likely to be more individualistic than the lower social classes. Accordingly, there is socialization for obedience and duty, which emphasize belonging and ﬁtting in lower SES settings, whereas in upper SES settings, there is socialization for independence and self-reliance, which emphasize being separate, unique and realizing inner attributes. In line with these conclusions, in the traditional sociocultural Turkish context, there appear to be ‘fused and undifferentiated systems of relationships’ (Fis¸ek, 1984, p. 310). The ties with family members tend to be quite close and interdependent, but with increasing SES, Turkish people tend to express more individuated self-construals (Imamog˘lu, 1987, 2003; Karakitapog˘lu-Aygu¨n, 2004) and individualistic values (Imamog˘lu & Karakitapog˘lu-Aygu¨n, 1999; Karakitapog˘lu-Aygu¨n & Imamog˘lu, 2002). However, those studies argued and demonstrated that these new preferences for individualism and autonomy among the upper SES people exist together with feelings of relatedness. For example, in studies of self-descriptions among Turkish university students and adults, who were mostly from middle-upper SES backgrounds, both relational and individualistic descriptions were found to be most descriptive of the self (Imamog˘lu, 2002; Karakitapog˘lu-Aygu¨n, 2004).

Because they live in the same country, upper and lower SES adolescents may be expected to perceive similarly high degrees of expected relationality. However, since lower SES environments tend to be characterized by higher levels of interdependence and greater fusion among family members, these may inﬂuence children’s perceptions of actual and ideal degrees of relatedness. Accordingly, we expected adolescents from lower SES backgrounds to report higher levels of ideal, and to some degree actual, relatedness with their parents than their upper SES counterparts. On the other hand, in congruence with the results of the ﬁrst study, we expected differences in actual relatedness to be more pronounced for self-construal types than SES.

Method Participants

A total of 353 (190 female, 163 male; mean age 15.44, SD¼ 0.75, range 14–18) high school students participated in the study. Of these, 186 (89 female, 97 male; mean age 15.25, SD¼ 0.78, range 14–18) constituted the lower SES sample, and 167 (66 male, and 101 female; mean age 15.65, SD¼ 0.66, range 14–17) the upper SES sample. Two public high schools from poorer sections of Ankara were chosen for the lower SES sample, and two private schools from the more prosperous areas for the upper SES sample. As expected, the samples were different in terms of parental education. In the lower SES sample, most of the mothers were primary school graduates (56%) or had no schooling (2%); and most of the fathers (60%) were graduates of high school or junior high school; whereas in the upper SES sample, most of the fathers (89%) and mothers (69%) were university graduates or post-graduates.

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Instruments and Procedure

The same scales were used as in the ﬁrst study. Students again completed them in their classrooms.

Results

To investigate SES and gender differences in relatedness, a 2 (SES: upper, lower) 2 (gender: male, female) 2 (parent: mother, father) 3 (type of relatedness: actual, ideal, expected) ANOVA with repeated measures on the last two variables was conducted. Furthermore, to explore across and within-SES differences in relatedness in terms of self-types and value orientations, two separate MANOVAs were conducted using actual, ideal, and expected relatedness as dependent variables, as explained below. In all follow-up analyses, Tukey technique was used for within-subject effects and univariate analysis of variance was used for between-subject effects. Moreover, in order to explore the role of individualistic and collectivistic values on relatedness, regression analyses were conducted, as in the ﬁrst study.

SES Differences in Relatedness

The above-noted ANOVA results indicated all main effects to be significant, as shown in Table 6. According to SES main effect, lower SES respondents (M¼ 6.86) showed more relatedness with their parents than the upper SES respondents (M¼ 6.30). In terms of type of relatedness, most relatedness was reported in the expected condition (M¼ 7.32), then ideal (M ¼ 6.69), and least in the actual condition (M¼ 5.72), replicating the cross-cultural findings. Furthermore, participants reported more relatedness with their mothers (M¼ 6.69) than fathers (M ¼ 6.46), as in the first study. These main effects were modified by significant interactions, as summarized in Table 6 and explained below.

First, SES by type of relatedness interaction was signiﬁcant. As shown in Table 2, there were no differences between upper and lower SES respondents in the ratings of expected relatedness, but there were signiﬁcant differences in actual and ideal ratings. As expected, lower SES students received higher scores in these types of relatedness than the upper SES students did.

Gender of the respondent by parent interaction was also found to be signiﬁcant (Table 6). As shown in Table 3, there were no differences between male and female respondents in terms of relatedness with fathers; however, while male respondents reported equal levels of relatedness with their mothers and fathers, the female respondents displayed more relatedness with their mothers than their fathers, and more so than the males did.

Furthermore, gender of the respondent by type of relatedness interaction was signiﬁcant. However, as can be seen in Table 3, follow-up analyses indicated only nonsigniﬁcant trends for female adolescents to display higher levels of ideal and expected relatedness than male ones (p< 0.06 and 0.07, respectively).

Finally, parent by type of relatedness interaction was signiﬁcant (Table 6). Follow-up analyses indicated that there were no differences between relatedness with mothers and fathers in the ideal condition (Ms¼ 6.75 and 6.64 for mothers and fathers, respectively), but mean scores of actual (5.82) and expected (7.50) relatedness with mothers were higher than the actual (M¼ 5.61) and expected (M¼ 7.10) relatedness with fathers (p < 0.01 and 0.001, respectively for actual and expected conditions).

In the analyses reported in the sections below, only the effects involving self-types or value orientations are considered. Since relatedness differences involving SES have already been reported, they are not repeated.

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Differences in Relatedness of Respondents with Different Self Types

According to the 2 (SES: upper, lower.) 4 (self type: separated-patterned, separated-individuated, related-patterned, related-individuated) MANOVA using actual, ideal, and expected relatedness as dependent variables, the multivariate self-type effect was found to be significant (see Table 6). As shown in Table 4, all the univariate effects were significant. Similar to the findings of the first study, students with related self-construals perceived greater relatedness with their parents as compared to the ones with separated construals in all types of relatedness except that separated-individuated and related-patterned groups did not differ in expected relatedness. Again replicating the findings of the first study, the impact of self-types was greatest on actual relatedness and least on expected relatedness with ideal relatedness being in between, as shown in Table 4.

Moreover, the multivariate SES by self-type interaction was found to be signiﬁcant (Table 6). Univariate analyses indicated that this interaction was signiﬁcant only for ideal relatedness type. Regardless of self-types, the lower SES participants reported greater ideal relatedness with their parents as compared to their upper SES counterparts, except for those with the related-patterned

Table 6. Signiﬁcant ANOVA and MANOVA results involving SES data

Source MSE df F 2

Differences in relatedness across SES groupsa

SES 9.32 1, 332 16.35*** 0.05

Relatedness Type 1.67 2, 664 253.51*** 0.43

Parent 2.20 1, 332 11.43*** 0.03

SES Relatedness Type 1.67 2, 664 16.81*** 0.05

Gender Relatedness Type 1.67 2, 664 4.57* 0.01

Gender Parent 2.20 1, 332 4.49* 0.01

Parent Relatedness Type 0.79 2, 664 3.37* 0.01

Differences in relatedness of participants with different self-typesb

Self-Type 9, 781 11.07*** 0.09 Actual Relatedness 1.96 3, 323 34.10*** 0.24 Ideal Relatedness 1.85 3, 323 14.10*** 0.12 Expected Relatedness 1.52 3, 323 7.48*** 0.07 SES Self-Type 9, 781 3.36*** 0.03 Actual Relatedness 1.96 3, 323 1.02 0.01 Ideal Relatedness 1.85 3, 323 4.70** 0.04 Expected Relatedness 1.52 3, 323 0.61 0.01

Differences in relatedness of respondents with different value orientationsc

Collectivist Orientation 3, 305 10.24*** 0.09

Actual Relatedness 2.41 1, 307 16.44*** 0.05

Ideal Relatedness 2.00 1, 307 30.50*** 0.09

Expected Relatedness 1.41 1, 307 12.86*** 0.04

SES Collectivist Orientation Individualist Orientation 3, 305 3.45* 0.03

Actual Relatedness 2.41 1, 307 0.28 0.00

Ideal Relatedness 2.00 1, 307 0.00 0.00

Expected Relatedness 1.41 1, 307 6.41* 0.02

a_{A 2 (SES) 2 (Gender) 2 (Parent) 3 (Relatedness type) ANOVA with repeated measures on the two last variables is}

involved.

b

A 2 (SES) 4 (Self type) MANOVA using relatedness types as dependent variables is involved. For SES effects involving relatedness types, see Table 2.

c_{A 2 (SES)}_{2 (Collectivist Value Orientation) 2 (Individualist Value Orientation) MANOVA using relatedness types as}

dependent variables is involved. For SES effects involving relatedness types, see Table 2. *p< 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001.

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self-type, who were similarly related in both SES contexts (Ms¼ 7.28 and 7.09 for lower and upper SES, respectively). Furthermore in the ideal condition, respondents with separated self-construals appeared to be relatively less related at the upper SES compared to the lower SES (Ms¼ 6.61 and 7.16 at the lower SES for separated-patterned and separated-individuated types, respectively, while the respective means were 5.42 and 5.29 at the upper SES).

Differences in Relatedness of Respondents with Different Value Orientations

As shown in Table 5, in both SES groups collectivistic values positively predicted relatedness with parents in all types of relatedness, replicating the cross-cultural ﬁndings. Individualistic values did not predict relatedness in either SES group.

In parallel to the ﬁrst study, a 2 (SES: lower, upper) 2 (individualist value orientation: low, high) 2 (collectivist value orientation: low, high) MANOVA was conducted using actual, ideal and expected relatedness as dependent variables. As shown in Table 6, the collectivist value orientation effect was signiﬁcant for all types of relatedness. This collectivist value effect was independent of SES and the individualist value orientation except for a univariate interaction for expected relatedness involving both value types and SES (Table 6). According to this rather weak trend, the upper SES students who were high in both value orientations reported more expected relatedness, whereas the lower SES students who were low in both value orientations reported less expected relatedness than other students in their status groups.

Discussion

Turkish adolescents from different SES groups did not differ in their perceptions of expected relationality. That is, presumably because they live in the same society, adolescents from both SES groups perceived their parents as expecting similarly high relatedness. However, as expected, Turkish adolescents from the lower SES perceived their ideal and to some degree actual selves as more related or overlapping with their parents than those from upper SES did. This ﬁnding seems to be in line with the traditional dependency emphasis on parent-child relationships, which children seem to have idealized, and to some degree internalized, in these lower SES environments (Imamog˘lu, 1987, 1991). Hence, results are consistent with the earlier reports that in lower SES environments where dependence of children to parents is emphasized (Imamog˘lu, 1987), self-other boundaries appear to be fuzzier (Fis¸ek, 1984).

In line with the results of the ﬁrst study, differences involving self-construal types were largest in terms of actual relatedness; then in ideal relatedness; and least in expected relatedness. As expected, respondents with both related-individuated and related-patterned self-construals reported more actual and ideal relatedness than those with separated self-types (i.e., the separated individuated and separated-patterned types). On the other hand, for expected relatedness, the separated-individuated and related-patterned self-types appeared to be relatively less differentiated. These differences associated with self-construals did not vary as a function of SES except for ideal relatedness; i.e., respondents with the most integrated self-construal type (i.e., the related-patterned) perceived their ideal selves as similarly related in both SES groups, whereas those with the other self-types perceived their ideal selves as more related in the lower SES than in upper SES. Thus, in general, adolescents seem to idealize relatedness more in the lower SES than the upper SES, except for those having highly integrated self-types, which idealize relatedness in both status groups.

Again in consistency with the results of the cross-cultural study, collectivistic values seemed to predict relatedness with parents in both status groups. That is, regardless of SES, the more

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collectivistically oriented adolescents reported more ideal, actual and expected relatedness. Similar to SES, the collectivistic value orientation also seemed to have more impact on ideal relatedness than actual or expected relatedness. On the other hand, the individualistic value orientation appeared to be independent of relatedness. The general implications of these ﬁndings together with the cross-cultural ones are considered further in the section below.

As for gender-related results, regardless of SES, adolescents reported more actual and expected relatedness with mothers than fathers. On the other hand, when gender of the respondents is considered, female respondents from both SES reported more relatedness with mothers in comparison to both fathers and their male counterparts. Furthermore, regardless of SES, female respondents showed a trend to report more ideal and expected relatedness with parents than the male respondents did. Thus, gender-related ﬁndings were congruent with the earlier results and did not vary with SES.

GENERAL DISCUSSION

Present findings suggest several implications for our understanding of relatedness with parents. In this section, first differential impact of cross- (involving Turkey and U.S.A.) and within-culture differences (involving SES, self-types, and value orientations) on relatedness is considered. Secondly, the broader implications of the findings that question some tacit understandings regarding cultural differences are considered. Finally, some limitations and strengths of the present research are noted.

Results provided consistent trends for the differential impact of culture, SES, self-types, and value orientations on actual, ideal, and expected relatedness with parents. The impact of culture appeared to be mostly on perceived expectations of relatedness; and secondly, on ideal degree of relatedness conceived. Accordingly, Turkish respondents reported more expected and ideal relatedness than the Americans did, in line with the I-C literature, as noted in the Introduction. However, contrary to the I-C literature, Turks and Americans seemed to be rather similar in terms of their reports of actual relatedness with parents.

Though the cultural groups appeared to be quite similar in actual relatedness, they showed considerable within-culture variation involving self-types and value orientations, in almost all types of relatedness. Specifically, in both cultures respondents with more related self-types (regardless of their degree of individuation), as well as those with more other-directed, collectivistic value orientations (regardless of their degree of self-directed, individualistic value orientations) reported more actual, ideal, and to some degree expected relatedness compared to the respondents low in those self- and value-orientations. As would be expected, the impact of self-types seemed to be mostly on actual relatedness while that of value orientations appeared to be mostly on ideal relatedness. Since self-types, as measured by the BID scale, refer to actual differences in self-construals, it is not surprising that most of their impact was found to be on actual relatedness. As suggested by the BID model, past research indicated the interrelational self orientation to be predicted by parental love-acceptance (e.g., Imamog˘lu, 2003). Hence, it appears that in actual relatedness with parents the immediate characteristics of the parent-child relationship may be more important than those of the broader culture. Present results further indicated that respondents with related self-types also reported more ideal and, to some degree, expected relatedness than the less related ones did. This latter finding suggests that the impact of self-construals may be quite pervasive, influencing not only one’s ideals, but also perceptions of parental expectations.

On the other hand, because values tend to represent ideal end-states or means of achieving them (Rokeach, 1973), it would be understandable for the collectivistic value orientation to have most of its impact on ideal relatedness. In this regard, the ﬁnding that only the collectivistic value orientation

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predicted relatedness in both the U.S. and Turkey, societies labeled as individualistic and collectivistic, respectively, may provide partial support to the I-C conceptualization in terms of affirming the collectivism-relatedness link, but also questions its broader implications. On the other hand, the finding regarding the independence of relatedness from individualistic values may provide partial support to findings reporting the orthogonality of relatedness and I-C (e.g., Kashima et al., 1995; Oyserman et al., 2000). However, a weak trend was observed for the individualistic value orientation to predict being less related in the U.S., but not in Turkey. The latter finding is congruent with other research reports, which indicate that in the upper segments of the Turkish society relatedness and individuation tend to co-exist (Imamog˘lu, 1987, 1998, 2003), in line with the BID model considered above. What seems to be suggested by the present findings is that individualistic value orientations, as well as individuational self-developmental orientations generally tend to be independent of related-ness, in congruence with earlier findings based on the BID model (Gezici & Gu¨venç, 2003; Imamog˘lu, 1998, 2002, 2003; Kurt, 2002). As for the slightly negative associations observed between indivi-dualistic values and relatedness in the U.S., other findings from our research project suggest that individualistic orientations might be somewhat negatively associated only with perceiving one’s identity as distinct or related, but to be independent of emotional closeness in both Turkey and the U.S. (Imamog˘lu & Karakitapog˘lu-Aygu¨n, 2005).

Another within-culture variable, SES, appears to have an impact mostly on ideal relatedness, and to some degree on actual relatedness. The Turkish adolescents from the lower SES seem to perceive more actual relatedness, and more importantly, seem to idealize it more than those from the upper SES. In this regard, status- and collectivist value-related effects appear to be similar in terms of impacting mostly ideal relatedness. In fact, as asserted by Triandis (1989, 1990, 1997), the lower SES Turkish respondents were found to endorse collectivist values more than their upper SES counterparts (Imamog˘lu & Karakitapog˘lu-Aygu¨n, 2004). On the other hand, unlike culture, which mostly impacted expected relatedness, SES did not seem to have a signiﬁcant impact on expected relatedness. Presumably because they live in basically the same culture, adolescents perceived parents’ expecta-tions for relatedness to be similarly high in both SES groups. Those results are congruent with earlier ﬁndings from Turkey indicating that the upper and lower SES parents tend to expect similarly high levels of love and respect from their children (Imamog˘lu, 1987).

In terms of gender, across cultural and SES groups women appear to be more related with their mothers in comparison to their fathers and male counterparts. The fact that the gender-related results were independent of culture and SES refers to the pervasiveness of relatedness among women across contexts, in consistency with the relevant gender literature, as noted before (e.g., Chodorow, 1978; Gilligan, 1982). However, the impact of gender-related effects was low in both studies. Thus, although consistent, gender differences in relatedness with parents appear to be rather weak across contexts.

Broader Implications of the Findings

Present findings may be considered to have some broader implications for our understanding of differences and similarities between cultures. First, when a significant cross-cultural difference is obtained, often we tend to interpret it as implying actual differences between cultures. However, present results caution that it may not necessarily be so. In fact, cultural differences may be more likely to reflect normative expectations and ideals rather than actual states.

Secondly, we often tend to consider cultures to be more homogeneous than they actually are (see also Bandura, 2001; Imamog˘lu, 2003), and are likely to exaggerate differences between cultures and minimize those within, a phenomenon well-known in social cognition literature (Fiske & Taylor, 1991). Accordingly, the tacit understanding of cultures often can be likened to that of a uniform worn